CBP lacked the authority to reliquidate three drawback claims regarding three jewelry entries made by Importer Zale Delaware, since the drawback claims deemed liquidated, Zale argued in a Nov 24 complaint at the Court of International Trade (Zale Delaware v. United States, CIT # 25-00139).

The Commerce Department permissibly changed its reason for using partial adverse facts available against antidumping duty respondent Saha Thai on remand in the 2020-21 administrative review of the AD order on Thai steel pipes and tubes, the U.S. told the Court of International trade on Nov. 24. The government said Commerce complied with the basic tenets of administrative law by taking new agency action on remand, adding that the agency properly applied partial AFA to find Saha Thai is affiliated with BNK Steel Co., a home market customer (Saha Thai Steel Pipe Public Company v. United States, CIT # 21-00627).

Steel plate exporters Hyundai Steel and Dongkuk Steel Mill filed a pair of reply briefs at the Court of International Trade on Nov. 20, contesting the Commerce Department's de facto specificity regarding South Korea's discounted off-peak electricity prices in the 2022 administrative review of the countervailing duty order on cut-to-length carbon-quality steel plate from South Korea. Both companies contested Commerce's grouping of three unrelated industries to find that the steel industry received a disproportionate amount of the subsidy (Hyundai Steel v. United States, CIT Consol. # 24-00190).

Printing plate exporter Fujifilm, which also manufactures its product in the United States, argued again Nov. 17 that the International Trade Commission had failed to properly take into account a manufacturing plant it shuttered mid-injury investigation that caused it to increase its imports (Fujifilm North America Corp. v. United States, CIT # 24-00251).

Antidumping duty petitioner American Paper Plate Coalition on Nov. 20 pushed back against respondent Fuzhou Hengli Paper's bid to add an "Excel datafile" to the record in the respondent's case against the AD investigation on paper plates from China on the basis that the document was never properly presented to the Commerce Department in the investigation (Fuzhou Hengli Paper v. United States, CIT # 25-00064).

The Commerce Department failed to provide notice of any reporting deficiencies related to antidumping duty respondent Fuzhou Hengli Paper Co.'s paperboard input reporting, and the agency was on notice of any alleged deficiency, since the respondent's reporting methodology was "obvious," Fuzhou Hengli argued in a Nov. 17 reply brief at the Court of International Trade (Fuzhou Hengli Paper v. United States, CIT # 25-00064).

AD/CVD petitioner Magnesia Carbon Bricks Fair Trade Committee asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to speed up its appeal on the Commerce Department's decision to exclude seven types of bricks imported by Fedmet Resources Corp. from the scope of the antidumping duty and countervailing duty orders on magnesia carbon bricks from China. The petitioner said the relief it's seeking is "modest," and that a sped-up briefing schedule is needed to "prevent competitive harms" to the "domestic refractory-brick industry" that should be subject to "significant AD/CVD duties" (Fedmet Resources v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 26-1160).

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Antidumping duty respondent Oman Fasteners opened a lawsuit last week against its former counsel, Perkins Coie, for legal malpractice and breach of fiduciary duty in its representation of the exporter in AD proceedings on steel nails from Oman. Filing suit in Washington state court, Oman Fasteners centered on two alleged mistakes made by the Perkins Coie attorneys: the failure to submit a fully translated surrogate financial statement in the AD investigation and to meet a filing deadline in the sixth review of the AD order, which led to a total adverse facts available AD rate.

The Commerce Department reasonably decided not to attribute subsidies provided to Nur Gemicilik, an affiliated input supplier of countervailing duty respondent Kaptan Demir, to Kaptan itself in the 2018 CVD review on Turkish rebar, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held on Nov. 17. Judges Raymond Chen, Richard Linn and Todd Hughes said Commerce properly identified that the unprocessed steel scrap Nur provided Kaptan was a "common input" and that the agency didn't place undue weight on consideration of Nur's main business activity.